Mail Order Bride - Westward Heartbeat: A Historical Cowboy Romance Novel (Montana Mail Order Brides Book 15)

by Linda Bridey

  “That would be nice. Thank you, dear.”

  Jack’s eyes grew a little wider at her use of the term of endearment, but he didn’t comment on it. “How do you take it?”

  “Just cream, please,” she replied.

  Jack gave her the beverage and sat down with her.

  “He acts fine, but we all really know he’s not,” Jack said.

  “I need to talk to him. Is he working today?”

  “No.”

  Pricilla squared her shoulders. “Well, then, I would appreciate it if you would take me to the camp so I can see him.”

  Jack wasn’t sure he heard her right. “You wanna go to the camp to see Raven?”

  She frowned at him. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Pricilla, it’s just that you’ve never wanted to go before and it surprises me that you do now.”

  “He leaves me no choice. If that is what I must do, then so be it.”

  Jack said, “The quickest way is on horseback.”

  “I guess I’d better go rent a horse then.”

  “Do you ride?”

  “Jack, I haven’t ridden in some time, but I’m sure I can manage it,” Pricilla said. “Now, I’ll go get a horse and come back.”

  “Aunt Pricilla, I’m workin’. I can’t just leave,” Jack said. He really did not want to spend a lot of time with the woman.

  Mitch said, “That’s ok, Jack. You help your aunt. I’ve got everything covered here.”

  Jack could have killed Mitch, but there was no way to get out of it without a major confrontation with his aunt. “Ok. I’ll go get the horse for you and come back.”

  “Oh, thank you. Such a good boy,” Pricilla said.

  As Jack left the office, he gave Mitch dagger eyes, but Mitch ignored him. He came back fifteen minutes later with a horse that Stew told him was a good trail horse. Getting Pricilla in the saddle was a little tricky but they managed it. Once she was settled in the saddle, she smiled.

  “I have a good view from up here, Jack. Us short people don’t get to see this angle too often,” she joked.

  Jack laughed. He hadn’t been expecting the witty remark. “No, I guess not. You needed to grow more,” he said as they started out.

  “Humph! I grew in the wrong direction.”

  Jack chuckled.

  “Don’t you laugh at me, Jackson,” Pricilla said as she drew alongside of him.

  “Uh oh. My full name. You sound like Mama,” Jack said.

  She chuckled. “I can’t do that with Raven. He only has one name.”

  Jack said, “Actually, you can now. The adoption went through so now he’s Raven Dwyer.”

  Pricilla laughed gleefully. “Thank you for the information, deputy.”

  “I’m always glad to help,” Jack said. Help give you ammunition to use on Raven, that is.

  Jack was pleasantly surprised to find that he actually enjoyed the ride to camp with his aunt. She told him stories about his father and uncles from when they were young. They were things that he’d not heard before and he couldn’t wait to confront them about.

  Riding came back to Pricilla, and she also had a good time as the horses picked their way down the trail. She enjoyed hearing Jack laugh and his sarcastic remarks. The woods were pretty and she saw rabbits and various birds. When they came out into the clearing, Pricilla stopped her horse and looked around. There were seven tipis set up in a circle with a lodge set in the center of the circle. There were also a couple of newly constructed picnic tables and what looked to be the early stages of a cabin under construction.

  Jack watched his aunt as she took it all in and wondered what she was thinking. Never in a trillion years would he have thought he’d see the day when Pricilla Samuels would set foot in an Indian camp. The fact that she had told Jack how much Raven meant to her.

  Raven came into the clearing by the trail that led to Joe’s place. He thought he was seeing things when he saw Pricilla sitting on a horse over by the tipis. He actually stopped and shook his head and looked again. She was still there. Then he wondered if there was an emergency and became alarmed. He ran over to her, his long strides carrying him along swiftly.

  “Auntie? Why are you here? Is everything ok?” he said as he looked up at her.

  “No, it is not,” she answered. “Help me down from here. We need to discuss a few things.”

  Once she stood on the ground, Raven asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Introduce me around first and then we’ll talk,” Pricilla said. She was a little nervous about meeting the other Lakota present, but she wasn’t going to be rude and ignore them. Besides, she was curious about them.

  Raven grinned. “Ok. This is my mother, Wind Spirit. Mother, this is Pricilla Samuels.”

  Pricilla shook hands with the beautiful woman and could see where Raven partly got his looks. “It’s lovely to meet you. Your son is such a wonderful young man. I’m so happy that you’re off that dreadful reservation.”

  Wind Spirit nodded and said, “Thank you. Yes, he is. Thank you for being so kind to him and for all of the food you made for us. Especially for my husband.”

  “You’re quite welcome,” she said.

  Raven motioned towards Reckless who was walking towards them. “You already know Reckless.”

  “Oh, yes. How are you, dear?”

  Reckless flicked an unsure glance at Raven who just smiled.

  “Fine. It is good to have you visit us, Mrs. Samuels,” Reckless said.

  “Oh, it’s just ‘Auntie’, dear. No need to be so formal. Now, where are your pretty wife and those darling babies of yours?”

  Over the elderly lady’s head, Reckless and Raven exchanged amused looks. Reckless led her over to their tipi and beckoned to Brook to come out. When she did, Reckless introduced the two women. Pricilla exclaimed over how pretty she was and took one of the twins from her.

  Blue Bear wanted to play with her glasses and she laughed as she kept his little hands away from them. “My goodness, they are adorable. You’d better start bringing them to see me, now.”

  Reckless gave Raven another startled glance, but Raven shrugged. He was just as surprised as Reckless. Raven also introduced her to Squirrel, Striking Snake, and their sons, Moose and Hawk, who were seventeen and eighteen, respectively.

  “My goodness, but you are all such strapping young men. I’m very happy to meet all of you,” she said. She handed Blue Bear back to Reckless and turned to Raven. “Now, you and I have business to discuss, young man.”

  Raven knew that tone well. He was in trouble for something.

  “Come with me,” she said. “I want to talk to you about Zoe.”

  Raven stopped walking at the mention of his ex-fiancée. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

  Pricilla put a hand on her hip and pointed at one of the picnic tables with the other. “Raven Dwyer, you sit your backside down here right now and don’t backtalk me!”

  Reckless cocked an eyebrow in Raven’s direction, but he was shocked to watch Raven walk meekly over to the table and sit down. Pricilla sat across from him and took one of his hands in hers.

  “Now, Raven, why haven’t you been to see me?” she asked in a softer tone.

  He just frowned.

  “Raven! Answer me.”

  In a low voice, Raven said, “It hurts too much, Auntie.”

  “Why?”

  “The swing. It hurts too much to see it.”

  Pricilla asked, “The swing? What about it?”

  Briefly Raven told her about the night Zoe got stuck in it and Pricilla laughed.

  “Oh, dear. I would have liked to have seen that.”

  Raven smiled a little in spite of the pain the memory caused him. “It’s where I proposed to her.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said, patting his hand. “Well, I know you’re miserable without her, Raven. As much as you try to pretend you’re fine, you’re not.”

  Raven scowled at her.

  “Don’t
you look at me like that. You know it’s true. I know you still love her.”

  Raven said, “It doesn’t matter if I do or not, Auntie. She chose her mother.”

  “Actually, she didn’t, I’m happy to say,” Pricilla said.

  “What do you mean?” Raven asked.

  “Zoe didn’t go back to Green Bay, she went to her friend Camille’s in Nebraska. She wants nothing more to do with her mother,” Pricilla told him.

  “She doesn’t?”

  “No.”

  Raven shrugged. “She wants nothing to do with me, either.”

  “Well, you didn’t give her much time to decide something so serious, Raven. I know you were very upset and angry at the time, but trying to force Zoe to pick right on the spot wasn’t very reasonable,” Pricilla said.

  Sudden fury caused Raven to curl his free hand into a fist and slam it down on the table. “Auntie, she called me an animal and accused me of trying to rape Zoe!”

  “Now, don’t break the table, dear,” Pricilla said unperturbed by his show of anger. “Dana did, but Zoe didn’t. Didn’t Zoe defend you to her mother?”

  “Yes,” Raven said reluctantly. “But she wanted us to sit and talk about things. There’s no way that I would ever sit down with that woman. Ever!”

  “Oh, I don’t blame you there. She’s a detestable woman,” Pricilla said. “But I think Zoe meant for you and her to discuss things, not her mother.”

  Raven considered that for a moment. “Perhaps. It doesn’t matter. Even if Zoe did not choose her mother, she did not choose me, either. She left.”

  “Well, in your own way, you left her, too,” Pricilla said.

  “I did no such thing! She would not come with me and I was not going to stand there any longer with that bi—“

  “Raven!” Pricilla objected. “Although I agree with you, let’s not say it.”

  “Fine. I did not leave her. She knew where I was, but she did not come to me,” Raven said.

  Pricilla gave him a knowing look and said, “You didn’t go to her, either.”

  Again his fist came down on the table. “She was not the one who was wronged! She should have been willing to come with me.”

  “If she had, what good would that have done?”

  “We would be married and happy now, Auntie,” Raven said softly.

  “I’m not so sure, Raven.”

  “Why?”

  “You know that Zoe’s father ran off. Her mother loved and cared for her all her life and tried to make Zoe happy in her father’s absence. Like it or not, Dana is her mother and until this situation came up, Zoe had no reason to be displeased with her mother. Dana was Zoe’s sense of security and you two weren’t married yet, so asking Zoe to instantly disown her mother wasn’t the answer.”

  “It was for me.”

  “Yes. Exactly. For you, but not for you and Zoe together. Marriage is a compromise, Raven, as any married couple will tell you. I’m sure your parents have told you the same thing, as well as all of your aunts and uncles. You can’t just dictate something like that to her and expect her to obey you. Oh, she might obey, but she’ll resent you for not considering how she feels,” Pricilla said. “Men seem to think that they own us women; that we’re nothing more than common property sometimes, but we’re human. Zoe objected to you treating her as if she were someone you could order around and make her do what you thought was right.”

  “I never treated her like that, Auntie. Never.”

  “Not until that night, Raven. Imagine how shocking it must have been for her to see the sweet-natured, funny, loving young man you are suddenly turn into an angry, yelling, formidable, man who was demanding things from her when she was scared and embarrassed.”

  Raven thought about how his father’s size and anger could intimidate even the most brave-hearted people when the man was enraged, himself included. He was the same size as his father, and he had been screaming. Maybe Zoe wasn’t afraid of him exactly, but it was a side of him she’d never seen before. There had been nothing that happened prior to that night to make him that furious.

  Not only would Zoe have been embarrassed, but she must have felt trapped between the two people she loved most in the world. How would you choose? Marcus came to mind. The man had been caught in the same dilemma. He had wanted to be loved and accepted by both families, but he had also wanted both families to get along. Raven could understand how Zoe would want the same thing.

  Pricilla saw understanding begin to dawn in his dark eyes and patted his hand. “Now do you see, at least a little?”

  Raven let out a huge sigh. “Yes, Auntie. I do. But it doesn’t matter now. She is gone and she is not coming back.”

  Pricilla took a piece of paper from her skirt pocket and slid it across the table to him. “This is where you can find her.”

  Raven picked up the paper and then stared at Pricilla.

  “Raven, sometimes there are things in this world that are worth going after. Zoe is one of them. Go get her and bring her home where she belongs.”

  Chapter Twenty

  For two days Raven brooded about what to do. One half of him wanted to leave right away to go get Zoe while the other, more prideful half kept telling him that her choice had been made and that he should cut his losses and leave it at that. He needed help to figure out what to do, but he didn’t know who he should go to for advice. He needn’t have worried. Help came to him.

  “Lame Duck!”

  Raven heard Rick at the same time he felt a hard slap to the back of his head.

  “Hey! What was that for?”

  “For being an idiot, what else?” Rick responded as he sat down at the bouncers’ table. “When are you going to start using the correct part of this,” he poked the side of Raven’s head, “a lot more of this,” he jabbed Raven’s chest, “and stop sitting on this,” he said and kicked what he could reach of Raven’s derrière.

  “What are you talking about?” Raven asked as he rubbed the various, smarting parts of his body.

  “I’m talking about you being a jackass and not going after your woman,” Rick responded as he put his boots up on the table and leaned his chair back against the wall.

  Raven glowered at Rick. “Who told you? I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “A little birdie named Auntie mentioned it to me. She wanted to know when you were leaving. I told her just as soon as possible, which by my calculations, is tomorrow morning, since I already cleared the time off with Mitch and Jake. And don’t worry about money or horses because I’ve got plenty of dough and Tex, with a little bit of persuasion from yours truly, has agreed to lend us Hamlet and Leo, his two fastest steeds. Plus, with me traveling with you as an authorized Indian agent, the chances of any complications arising due to the fact that you are an Indian are very small. You are traveling with me and therefore will not be subject to any funny business from the United States Military of Morons. Any other objections? No? I thought not,” he said as he put his feet back on the floor.

  “What if I don’t want to go?” Raven crossed his arms over his chest in a stubborn gesture.

  “Of course you do,” Rick said as he tipped his hat down over his eyes and acted if he were going to put his feet back up. “You’re just scared and fear can cause one to get stuck in a state called indecision, and that is not a good state to be in. Believe me, I know. But, with my newfound wisdom, I can reach out to those I see afflicted with the same dilemma and,” he hooked a foot around one of the legs of Raven’s chair and gave a mighty yank towards him, dumping Raven on the floor, “get them moving in the right direction.”

  Raven was on his feet in an instant, ready to throttle Rick. The Indian agent held up a hand and said, “Don’t waste your energy on me, Lame Duck. Table nearest the bar. You want to check that out. Sounds like something nasty brewing.”

  Sure enough, yelling broke out as two men threw their glasses to the floor and began fighting. Raven growled in frustration and went to go do his job after giving Rick a nasty
glare.

  Rick tipped his hat up to watch Raven stomp off and laughed. “It’s like I never left.”

  Reckless came over with a smile on his face. He went to sit down, but Rick kicked the chair away just as his rear would have made contact with it. The brave met the same fate as his cousin and he took a spill.

  “Hey, Sitting Duck, you better go help Lame Duck. Looks like it’s getting to be quite a party over there,” Rick said and pointed to where Raven had just slammed a man’s head into the wall.

  Reckless got up, knocked Rick’s hat off his head with a laugh and went on his way.

  “Damn it! Now he’s ahead of me in coup again,” Rick said. “Now I’m irritated. Curtis, you feel like doing a little work?”

  A loud whistle sounded and both braves laughed. Joe had just come out of the men’s room when he heard it. He turned right back around and locked himself inside again.

  *****

  “Tell me why you’re going with us again?” Rick asked as he looked over at Mike, who rode between him and Raven.

  “Because I’m the only one smart enough to think about you needing an extra horse for Zoe to ride,” Mike said. “And, you never know when some medical knowhow will come in handy.”

  “And because his mother is driving him crazy and he needs to get away from her,” Raven said with a grin.

  “That is true,” Mike said with a sigh. “I swear when I’m home for the summer, it’s like she thinks I’m her personal assistant and has a thousand things for me to do. She only does it so I’ll stay close by. She can’t stand me being away, that’s what it is.”

  Rick laughed as the sun started showing over the horizon. “My sister is trying to keep the boy from becoming a man.”

  “I already am a man,” Mike said. “She just doesn’t want to see it.”

  “That’s the way mothers are. Well, at least the good ones, anyway. I wouldn’t know from personal experience seeing as how my mother was the daughter of Satan, which is why I sent her back to hell,” Rick said.

  After years of violent abuse from his mother, Rick had killed her in self-defense when he was twelve. He’d been plagued by guilt and fear for years, which had taken the form of nightmares, flashbacks and blackouts when the subject of his mother was brought up. He’d finally reached a place where he could talk about her without those kinds of things happening.